MariAn Gail Brown

Updated 11:20 am, Thursday, March 14, 2013

TRUMBULL -- Pasquale Federici promised his Stash House Boutique customers that if they paid a premium over the manufacturer's suggested retail price, they could be the proud owners of high-end Nike Air Yeezy II sneakers and other models months before anyone else in Sneakerdom.

Instead, what dozens of those known customers received were receipts showing they had forked over hundreds, even thousands of dollars to Federici as deposits.

In other cases, they got consignment receipts for the high-end sneakers they provided to Federici to sell. In the end, though, neither group got what they bargained for.

And Federici's Stash House Boutiques, with locations in Trumbull, Milford, Danbury and Waterbury, closed.

Now, Federici faces nine counts of larceny charges, including two counts of third-degree larceny, both of which are felonies. Each of those felonies are punishable by up to a five-year prison sentence and a fine of up $5,000 per offense.

Federici, 34, who gave Trumbull police a Stratford address, was released after posting $10,000 bond. He is slated to be arraigned Tuesday at state Superior Court in Bridgeport.

Federici's Facebook account, however, lists Orlando as his place of residence. Federici did not return calls placed to his cell phone.

The complaints that led to Federici's arrest come from customers in Trumbull, Roxbury, Meriden and Berlin. A spokesman for the Trumbull Police Department said additional charges from other police departments in Connecticut are possible.

"I have a job that pays me a little more than minimum wage in retail," said Frank Andrews, a Stash House Boutique customer who paid $800 over several months for a pair of Nike Air Yeezy II sneakers. "That money I paid them didn't come easy to me. Every time I called, there was another excuse.

"The employees at his store in the (Waterbury) mall were texting (Federici), and he kept saying, `Yeah, yeah, I'll be up there to work this out.' And I'd go to the store at the time he mentioned, and he didn't show up -- ever.

"Then I hear that the store in Trumbull has some Yeezys in. But they weren't in my size, and they weren't the right color," Andrews said. "And I told his people, sure I'll go pick them up. But he was like `No, you have to have the right color.' "

So Andrews never got his Yeezys. Had he received them, he said, he would have flipped them on eBay and used the money to buy a pair in the color and size he needed.

A check on eBay shows that sellers are hawking Nike's platinum, black and solar red Air Yeezy II sneakers for upward of $4,995 -- about double what they were asking in June 2012 when the sneakers first came out.

The Nike Air Yeezy II is the second collaboration between Nike and hip hop artist Kayne West. The sneaker's Yeezy moniker comes from West's nicknames.

Nike set the retail price of the Yeezy IIs at $250. The Stash House Boutique charged customers at least $800 to reserve a pair -- and for the privilege of getting theirs early.

The Connecticut Better Business Bureau in Wallingford has received 14 complaints about Stash House Boutique. The BBB also gives it a failing grade for failure to respond to the organization's inquiries.

Federici's Facebook page lists his occupation as a concert promoter. In 2009, The Press of Atlantic City reported that Federici was one of six people indicted by a New Jersey Grand Jury in an extortion-kidnapping plot that involved two concert promoters.

The dispute was over a Busta Rhymes concert that took in less money than projected, and the suspects held the victims at gunpoint to force them to return $165,000 of their investment, according to the newspaper.